Bars: just because you're old and feeble doesn't mean you can't outwit your children.

First her children installed a bar on their mother's wall, close to her bed, to help her rise and shine in the morning and find her way back safely at night. They were good children, and their mother was very grateful.

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Next came the bar in the shower so the mother could bathe; then came the stool so she wouldn't fall over. Soon after came Miss Ida to give her the shower while she sat on the stool and held onto the bar.

A couple of months later, three bars were strategically placed so that the mother could momentarily leave her walker and right, left, right over to unlock the front door and let Miss Ida in. She arrived with good cheer and an armload of macaroni and cheese. This was to celebrate the new bars and the mother's ability to navigate them.

Two nights later, the house next door was robbed. It was then that the children talked about bars on the doors and windows. Nice bars. Fancy, decorative grillwork.

One son said it was time for the nursing home. He kept the mother's books and volunteered to find her a comfortable place, one she could afford. One daughter said, disabuse yourself of that idea. She had given her father five extra years of life by her care, and she intended to do the same for her mother. In her own home. Another daughter said how dreadful to look out a window with bars on it, not to see the world whole, like it was something forbidden. The daughter full-of-care said their mother rarely looked out the window, preferring the TV, so what was the big deal about bars. One son left for a nearby bar to forget it all.

Did the children think their mother deaf to their intents? Not on your life. She had no desire to honor any of them. One quiet afternoon, soon after tea, the mother lay down on the couch as usual and covered herself with her own hand-crocheted afghan. As calm as you please, the mother fell asleep and, in the words of English poet Alfred Lord Tennyson, crossed the bar and went to meet her Pilot face to face.

This caused much moaning among her children and deep distress.

In time the house with bars was sold to a 50-year-old man who loved the spacious backyard. The mother's wreath still hangs on the front door. Nobody knows what happened to the bars.

By JOAN SAURO, C.S.J., an award-winning author who lives in Syracuse, N.Y. Her latest book is Does God Ever Sleep? (Skylight Paths).